USB 3.0 IS SLOWLY gaining ground and we’re seeing more and more devices being announced. VIA has just announced what it claims to be the first USB 3.0 hub controller and we have no reason to doubt it. Whether it’s needed is another matter altogether, but as always with new technology, there’s the chicken and egg effect and if no one brings out the chips for the bits that people are going to want, then no one’s going to buy into the technology.

The VL810 SuperSpeed Hub Controller, as the new chip is called, supports data transfer speeds of 5Gb/s. It offers up to four downstream USB ports and a hub based on the new chip can of course be powered. The VL810 chipset is also backwards compatible with all previous generations of USB technology, albeit at much slower data transfer speeds.